is it a feminist issue that the average woman will spend years of her life being pregnant

[PumpkinGuts]

and that none of the pharmacy companies seem to to care if we can take their sodding medicine?


Thread "inspired" by another thread. Some poor woman in chat can't take a lemsip because you can't find anything that says "yes, go ahead and take it" and doesn't pass the buck on to someone else.

I remember having a raging raging ear infection. Couldn't sleep couldn't lay my head down, and could not for the life of me get a doctor to prescribe something for the pain. Was left in a crying heap every night for days.

I realise there are ethical reasons for why they don't want to do studies..but the truth is there are woman taking them anyway can they not ask women who are going to take it anyway to give their info?


I recently have been researching cannabis for pain relief in labor and have found contrary to my previous belief that it must be fucking dangerous that it's actually had no real studies done on it to say it is dangerous for pregnant women and that case studies of women in areas where it is the life style... there is no real issue against it and the babies don't have a worse outcome than the babies who's mothers don't use it. Not to mention the coctail of real drugs and narcotics they give to laboring women that we actually know are unsafe!

AND it can be great for natural remedy for morning sickness!

[noblegiraffe]

it would be nice to see doctors/pharmacists/consultants all on the same (permissive) page when it comes to medication in pregnancy.

Medicines are licenced for use in certain groups of people, on which clinical trials have been performed. Any healthcare professional prescribing off-label - i.e. to someone outside the terms of the pharmaceutical licence is taking personal responsibility for any unintended consequences of that prescription. I can fully understand why many choose not to risk it in the case of pregnancy.

[HowlerMonkey]

I can understand why they are cautious, noblegiraffe, but there's caution and there's behaviour which borders on negligence.

I should not have to persuade a pharmacist that the consultant really DID tell me I could have this, honestly (not me personally but YKWIM).

If one doctor thinks a drug is medically safe in pregnancy and has let you have it then it is almost heart-breaking to find that another doctor will deny it to you based on their personal opinion.

I'm asking for a form of regulated consistency, I suppose.

[HowlerMonkey]

And I have just ordered that book puddock, thank you!

[BerstieSpotts]

Actually the breastfeeding issue has made me think. I know that a lot of drugs say "Speak to your doctor before using" whereas actually doctors very often don't know or say it's unsafe because it hasn't been tested.

There is an organisation called the Breastfeeding Network who have compiled a list of every drug and painstakingly catalogued which ones have been tested, which haven't, the half-lives of the drug if this is known, all to provide information for breastfeeding women. This is an organisation founded by women, operated by women. The drugs in breastmilk helpline/information online was compiled, by women, in response to a problem that their female telephone supporters had noted.

Notice a pattern??

For me breastfeeding is a bigger issue, partly because it has an image of being restrictive which puts women off but isn't true, and partly because in theory you can end up breastfeeding for far longer than you are pregnant.

However I can see from this thread that actually the problem happens in pregnancy too and is much more widespread than I had realised.

[PumpkinGuts]

for me breastfeeding is a bigger issue, partly because it has an image of being restrictive which puts women off but isn't true, and partly because in theory you can end up breastfeeding for far longer than you are pregnant.

it can be that some people bf for longer than pg but it's statistically the other way around for most women in Europe and the states.

thanks for the info about breast feeding network. .I'll store that away for later

[BerstieSpotts]

Sorry that wasn't clear, I was meaning to say that I originally felt that breastfeeding was the bigger issue as in my experience it has been. But I have spent almost 6 times as long breastfeeding as I have pregnant - I realise this is unusual - and I had a very straightforward pregnancy and did not need to take any medication at all during it. Having said that, most people I know who BF (who I didn't meet through places like La Leche League anyway) did so for around a year on average, even if they were mixed feeding by that time, so my experience is that most women breastfeed for slightly longer than pregnancy, at least.

One of the biggest reasons that women choose not to breastfeed or stop earlier than planned to is because they are told it is incompatible with medication they are on which is not always the case. So in fact incorrect/incomplete information about drugs is restricting women's choices as well.

[noblegiraffe]

But the pharmacist has to double check the prescription for safety, not just blindly hand out what the doctor has prescribed. The pharmacist caught a prescription for my baby that was incorrect, and had to phone the doctor to check and amend it.
So pharmacists have to make their own decision to hand over the drug too. No wonder they queried a consultant prescribing off-label, that's their job!

[5madthings]

there is querying it and then being a complete pita. me saying yes its fine i have spoken with my consultant and am aware of the recomrndations etc but to continue to go on and to try to refuse to give it to me, not ok.

[badguider]

thank goodness for the internet - most drugs do have some info out there if you know how to find and read scientific papers... I decided to take zantac and sumatriptan based on reading the papers myself. I will do the same while bf but actually for bf theres a lot of info about most common drugs on kellymom.